nine days in august

I.

today I learned about black holes,

and here is what I learned about life:

keep trying. be uncomfortable. stay learning. 

II.

I am finding I tend to hide in the studying,

in the admiring and preparing, 

rather than in the being, the emanating. 

not always, but sometimes, I find this to be true.

III.

and so I laid there 

abusing myself with only the idea of you. 

I did not need to but 

in a sense, I was bored 

and you were not here. 

my friend said to me: 

a man is not going to set you free -

you have to set yourself free.

I am not quite sure what she meant 

and yet I agreed. 

but I did not want to sit by myself, 

with myself, 

alone in this head, any longer, 

at least for today. 

so i escaped into my body 

thinking of you and you and you and all of you.  

IV.

maybe this is what the bible meant

eve being made of adam’s rib 

the way our ribs knock together 

making two become one 

V.

I came to Australia 

to find something, 

to become more of something, 

one thing, 

rather than a million of fractions too close to zero. 

Instead, the magpies and rainbow lorikeets and the kookaburra, 

only encouraged my magpie syndrome. 

The way they torpedoed through the sky, 

colors dancing on the light, 

cackling laughs reverberating in the night.

They weren’t trying to be or become, 

but rather just were, 

and it made me just be, 

in my magpie syndrome 

and unknowingness and introspection.